Free King of the Mountain by Fran Baker Page B

retreated a step, but there was nowhere to go. The sink caught her in the small of her back and his broad shoulders effectively blocked the doorway.
    “I’d never threaten you, Kitty,” he said quietly. “And that’s a promise.”
    Catfish fillets sizzled in the expectant silence.
    She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, trying her darnedest to say she believed him. But so many times in the past her credulity had been stretched to the snapping point that she couldn’t bring herself to voice the words he waited to hear.
    “The table’s set.”
    “The water glasses are full.”
    Jessie’s and Jamie’s timely announcements from the dining room broke the tension in the kitchen.
    Kitty turned away from those steely silver eyes and spoke to the iron skillet on the stove. “I’ll take up the fish.”
    Ben studied her in profile—her hair falling like a black curtain across her face as she slid the spatulaunder the fillets, her breasts thrown into sharp relief against the white wall when she opened the cupboard over the stove for a plate to put them on—then reached for a butcher knife. “I’ll cut the corn bread.”
    Dinner was like a family affair, with Ben and Kitty facing each other across the table and Jessie and Jamie flanking them on either side. Appetites took precedence over conversation, at least during the first round. But as stomachs filled, the talk began to flow.
    “This coleslaw is delicious,” Ben said as he spooned a second helping onto his plate.
    “Jessie made it,” Kitty said proudly.
    “From Mom’s recipe.”
    Ben winked at the daughter, but his words were meant for the mother. “She’ll have to share it with me.”
    The furnace cycled on in the sudden silence.
    “May I have some more corn bread?” Jamie asked politely.
    Kitty grabbed the serving plate and all but shoved it at the poor girl.
    Jamie took a square, then just sat there as if she didn’t know what to do with the rest of it.
    “Your mother tells me you play basketball,” Ben said to Jessie, smoothly relieving the bewildered Jamie of the serving plate.
    Jessie took a deep drink of her milk, leaving a thin mustache of white around her drooping mouth. “I used to.”
    “Hey,” Ben said, “the Cougars need all the help they can get.”
    Jamie perked up. “How’d you know the team’s name?”
    “I went to Cooperville Junior High too.”
    That was news to Kitty. “I thought you went to a private school up north.”
    A grimness settled over his features. “I left to go to high school and didn’t come back until I’d finished college.”
    “Eight years,” Jessie calculated aloud.
    “Then I went to Vietnam.”
    “You sure were gone a long time,” Jessie observed.
    His eyes went opaque. “Not long enough, according to some.”
    Kitty felt her heart going out to him and didn’t know why. Geographically they’d grown up in the same place, but the realms of their upbringings were worlds apart. She’d been reared in poverty but with plenty of love; he’d been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, yet made it sound as if that precious metal had been terribly tarnished.
    Jessie thumped her fist on the table now, making the dishes rattle. “Well, I’m glad you’re back.”
    Ben smiled and reached over to waggle her tip-tilted nose. “So am I, darlin’, so am I.”
    “May I be excused?” Jamie asked softly.
    “You certainly may,” Kitty said, then looked in her daughter’s direction.
    But Jessie had eyes only for Ben. “Did you play basketball for the Cougars?”
    “Sure did.” Finished eating, he laid his knife and fork diagonally across his plate.
    Jessie followed suit. “What position?”
    “Forward.”
    “That’s what
I
play!”
    “I play guard,” Jamie volunteered in a small voice that begged an interested ear.
    Ben turned the full sun of his smile on her timid face. “You must be really fast on your feet.”
    A tinge of pink blossomed in the twelve-year-old’s cheeks.